France's scorching weekend heat leads to elderly deaths, spate of drowings

A woman and two men, aged 80 to 95 years old died Sunday in their homes in the Bordeaux suburbs, probably because of the extreme heat, the Gironde department's prefect, Sophie Brocas, told France 3 local television.

The department was one of the 49 departments in which the Météo France weather service has declared a maximum "red alert" for extreme heat, with temperatures expected to reach 43C between Monday and Wednesday.

The heatwave is getting close to that of August 2003, when nearly 15,000 people - many of them elderly - died.

The extreme heat has also brought on an increase in drownings, with the Civil Protection service reporting 13 deaths at the weekend, including ten on Sunday alone.

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"In this period of extreme heat, it is good to cool down and stay hydrated, but when you go swimming, it really must be in a supervised area," Jérôme Boulanger, the Civil Protection spokesperson, told ICI Paris Île-de-France local radio, urging people to exercise caution when entering the water.

Among the victims was a 13-year-old girl who did not know how to swim, who drowned in Seine-et-Marne river on Sunday evening.

Boulanger reminded parents that children require constant supervision near water, even if they are wearing flotation devices.

"A child in the water requires one adult whose sole task is to supervise them," he said.

Dangerous currents

Authorities have warned against swimming in prohibited areas. Two boys, aged 11 and 13, drowned Saturday in the Doubs river, in an area where swimming was banned because of strong currents.

"Unfortunately, this tragedy could have been avoided if the rules had been respected," Rémi Bastille, the prefect of Doubs, told ICI Besançon, adding that police had spent much of the weekend pulling young people out of dangerous parts of the river.

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Another concern with the high heat is fire, with 17 departments in central, western and southern France at high risk, and about 250,000 firefighters have been mobilised.

Boulanger noted that harvests are starting, and in the Paris region, fires have started recently “in the fields, or from stubble burning”, where straw and crop residue left after harvest are set alight.

(with newswires)